Why is Firefox 42.0 not getting updated to be compatible with Norton Identity Safe?

Although the Norton Toolbar now appears in 42.0, the Identity Safe feature does not work with. Firefox does not provide the same level of browsing assistance that Norton's Identity Safe does, and using Firefox without the Identity Safe requires many additional keystrokes and much additional wasted time. Norton assures me that the Identity Safe should be compatible, and it works fine in Internet Explorer. Norton claims that the Firefox "checkers" are still vetting the program compatibility issues, but how long will this process take? Using Firefox without the Identity Safe is so cumbersome and tedious that I may have to try Google Chrome or go back to Internet Explorer, although I have used Firefox ever since it first came out. Please don't force me to switch. Thank you.

Although the Norton Toolbar now appears in 42.0, the Identity Safe feature does not work with. Firefox does not provide the same level of browsing assistance that Norton's Identity Safe does, and using Firefox without the Identity Safe requires many additional keystrokes and much additional wasted time. Norton assures me that the Identity Safe should be compatible, and it works fine in Internet Explorer. Norton claims that the Firefox "checkers" are still vetting the program compatibility issues, but how long will this process take? Using Firefox without the Identity Safe is so cumbersome and tedious that I may have to try Google Chrome or go back to Internet Explorer, although I have used Firefox ever since it first came out. Please don't force me to switch. Thank you.

Chosen solution

I understand its tedious, however the compatibility of the Toolbar is something being worked on by Norton, please also ask their support.

Are you using one of the Norton suites, or the stand-alone Identify Safe product? Both were updated about a week ago, but these were partial solutions. It may be some time before Norton finishes its compatibility fixes. See:

As you can imagine, none of us is going to freelance with modifying your security software. The only one who can resolve this is Symantec.

Are you using one of the Norton suites, or the stand-alone Identify Safe product? Both were updated about a week ago, but these were partial solutions. It may be some time before Norton finishes its compatibility fixes. See:
* https://community.norton.com/en/blogs/product-update-announcements/firefox-41-and-42-limited-support-norton-toolbar
* https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/norton-identity-safe/current/solutions/v115161915_EndUserProfile_en_us
As you can imagine, none of us is going to freelance with modifying your security software. The only one who can resolve this is Symantec.

Question owner

Thank you for your replies, but when I called Norton/Symantec, their representative claimed that they had finished their work to make the Identity Safe compatible with Firefox 42.0, and the reason it didn't work was due to Mozilla... which was still in the process of testing it and checking it out? I'm not sure who to believe, but I'll breathe a sigh of relief when it finally is functional.

Thank you for your replies, but when I called Norton/Symantec, their representative claimed that they had finished their work to make the Identity Safe compatible with Firefox 42.0, and the reason it didn't work was due to Mozilla... which was still in the process of testing it and checking it out? I'm not sure who to believe, but I'll breathe a sigh of relief when it finally is functional.

Mozilla planned a big change to Firefox 41 [originally] which required some extensions like Norton / Symantec and made add-on developers aware of the coming changes a few times over the last year or so via mailing lists and blogs for developers. Then as Firefox 41 was approaching release on September 22nd some companies asked Mozilla to postpone the related changes; Mozilla relented and pushed back those changes to Firefox 42 on November 03. It seems that Norton / Symantec still wasn't ready even with 6 additional weeks to fix their extensions and get the necessary "signing" done.
How long does Mozilla wait to release important security related features or changes due to other supposed security companies not paying attention to what the the company that makes the product that they are adding onto is doing?
Hell, they are adding onto Firefox! They should be following Mozilla lead and making the changes to their add-ons before Firefox is released; or they should just stop saying that they "support" Firefox!

"... Norton/Symantec, their representative claimed that they had finished their work to make the Identity Safe compatible with Firefox 42.0, and the reason it didn't work was due to Mozilla... which was still in the process of testing it and checking it out?"
I suspect that Norton / Symantec extensions may now be caught in the queue for their new extensions getting reviewed as "new" and also getting "signed". They can't expect the extension reviewers to "jump" their products to the front of the queue just because they are "Norton". And the queue has gotten longer over the last few months as more and more developers submitted extensions for signing; wait until the deadline and the line is longer than if you had planned ahead, as any person dealing with the DMV knows.
"Signing" for extensions goes back to Firefox 39 (back in June the warning about not being signed started appearing in the Add-on Manager) and enforcement (completely disabling the not signed extensions) has been postponed repeatedly due to many extension developers "dragging their feet" and now it is slated for Firefox 45 - after the next ESR version comes out.

Overall, too many Firefox / Norton users went thru this crap with Norton back in March of 2011 when Firefox 4.0 was released and their "stuff" quit working then. too. IIRC, it took Norton until [like] mid-July to release extensions that were compatible with Firefox 5 and that was after Firefox 4.0 was 'stuck' in Beta testing from July 2010 until March 2011 - 9 months. Clearly Norton wasn't testing the Firefox 4.0 beta versions with their extensions to not be ready for Firefox 4.0. Ya think they would have learned from that occurrence, but I suspect they "down-sized" the developers who went thru that experience back in 2011 and now they are re-learning from this lack of insight.

Sorry for the length of this message - but it just pisses me off to hear Norton say "our work is done, we're waiting on Mozilla now".
IMO, they were completely unaware (or didn't care) that Mozilla was changing Firefox and that their extensions would need to be re-written to continue to work with Firefox. Their managers were lax in keeping track of what Mozilla was doing and tasking developers to learn what they would need to do for Firefox compatibility with Firefox 40 and beyond. The information was / is out there - all they needed to do was subscribe to the correct mailing list and test the Nightly development version against their products to see what "got broken". Open-source development is open to anyone who wants to be involved or to see what is happening a few versions "down the road".

Mozilla planned a big change to Firefox 41 ''[originally]'' which required some extensions like Norton / Symantec and made add-on developers aware of the coming changes a few times over the last year or so via mailing lists and blogs for developers. Then as Firefox 41 was approaching release on September 22nd some companies asked Mozilla to postpone the related changes; Mozilla relented and pushed back those changes to Firefox 42 on November 03. It seems that Norton / Symantec still wasn't ready even with 6 additional weeks to fix their extensions and get the necessary "signing" done.
How long does Mozilla wait to release important security related features or changes due to other ''supposed'' security companies not paying attention to what the the company that makes the product that they are adding onto is doing?
Hell, they are adding onto Firefox! They should be following Mozilla lead and making the changes to their add-ons before Firefox is released; or they should just stop saying that they "support" Firefox!
'''''"... Norton/Symantec, their representative claimed that they had finished their work to make the Identity Safe compatible with Firefox 42.0, and the reason it didn't work was due to Mozilla... which was still in the process of testing it and checking it out?"'''''
I suspect that Norton / Symantec extensions may now be caught in the queue for their new extensions getting reviewed as "new" and also getting "signed". They can't expect the extension reviewers to "jump" their products to the front of the queue just because they are "Norton". And the queue has gotten longer over the last few months as more and more developers submitted extensions for signing; wait until the deadline and the line is longer than if you had planned ahead, as any person dealing with the DMV knows.
"Signing" for extensions goes back to Firefox 39 ''(back in June the warning about not being signed started appearing in the Add-on Manager)'' and enforcement (completely disabling the not signed extensions) has been postponed repeatedly due to many extension developers "dragging their feet" and now it is slated for Firefox 45 - after the next ESR version comes out.
Overall, too many Firefox / Norton users went thru this crap with Norton back in March of 2011 when Firefox 4.0 was released and their "stuff" quit working then. too. IIRC, it took Norton until ''[like]'' mid-July to release extensions that were compatible with Firefox 5 and that was after Firefox 4.0 was 'stuck' in Beta testing from July 2010 until March 2011 - 9 months. Clearly Norton wasn't testing the Firefox 4.0 beta versions with their extensions to not be ready for Firefox 4.0. Ya think they would have learned from that occurrence, but I suspect they "down-sized" the developers who went thru that experience back in 2011 and now they are re-learning from this lack of insight.
Sorry for the length of this message - but it just pisses me off to hear Norton say "our work is done, we're waiting on Mozilla now".
IMO, they were completely unaware (or didn't care) that Mozilla was changing Firefox and that their extensions would need to be re-written to continue to work with Firefox. Their managers were lax in keeping track of what Mozilla was doing and tasking developers to learn what they would need to do for Firefox compatibility with Firefox 40 and beyond. The information was / is out there - all they needed to do was subscribe to the correct mailing list and test the Nightly development version against their products to see what "got broken". Open-source development is '''open''' to anyone who wants to be involved or to see what is happening a few versions "down the road".

Question owner

Thank you for your detailed and informative reply. You would think that Norton, which charges for its product, would be more motivated to satisfy, and keep, its customers by working with Firefox to get its software compatible with Firefox in a more timely manner?

Thank you for your detailed and informative reply. You would think that Norton, which charges for its product, would be more motivated to satisfy, and keep, its customers by working with Firefox to get its software compatible with Firefox in a more timely manner?

"James" moderator gave a good response in his last post. However, it is disconcerting to see that "the-edmeister" is blaming norton for the 'queue' issue as i look at the firefox password manager add ons that include add that have less than 100 users and others that Ars Technica has shown to have a security (LastPass), when norton id safe is used by 10's of thousands of end users. Frankly the user numbers should have a priority.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/severe-password-manager-attacks-steal-digital-keys-and-data-en-masse/

''bertreply [[#answer-809602|said]]''
<blockquote>
... it is disconcerting to see that "the-edmeister" is blaming norton for the 'queue' issue as i look at the firefox password manager add ons that include add that have less than 100 users and others that Ars Technica has shown to have a security (LastPass), when norton id safe is used by 10's of thousands of end users. Frankly the user numbers should have a priority.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/severe-password-manager-attacks-steal-digital-keys-and-data-en-masse/
</blockquote>
apples vs oranges - just don't use a web-based password manager

So you are saying that web based password managers have inherent security faults that non web based managers do not? If so, by using a non web based manager, would browser vulnerabilities allow exploitation of the locally stored passwords?

So you are saying that web based password managers have inherent security faults that non web based managers do not? If so, by using a non web based manager, would browser vulnerabilities allow exploitation of the locally stored passwords?

Helpful Reply

I'm not saying that, the article that you cited is saying that.

Yes, a browser based manager could or might be exploited. It is up to the browser developers to fix any faults that "white hats" find. Similar for browser add-ons that might introduce a fault into the browser.

Overall, my feeling is that browser-based storage is more secure than web-based storage; HTTP/S protocol isn't involved - the "path" is inside the device.

I'm not saying that, the article that you cited is saying that.
Yes, a browser based manager could or might be exploited. It is up to the browser developers to fix any faults that "white hats" find. Similar for browser add-ons that might introduce a fault into the browser.
Overall, my feeling is that browser-based storage is more secure than web-based storage; HTTP/S protocol isn't involved - the "path" is inside the device.

I think we are all fed up with the time Norton takes to get its security software compatible with Firefox but why does this happen so often?
It behooves Firefox to have a liason at Norton and all other security software companies to keep these important features going. It makes me not set FF as a default I want to do.

I think we are all fed up with the time Norton takes to get its security software compatible with Firefox but why does this happen so often?
It behooves Firefox to have a liason at Norton and all other security software companies to keep these important features going. It makes me not set FF as a default I want to do.
Please fix this capability ASAP - It makes Mozilla and Firefox look bad!
How much of a code change is this anyway?

@JAVABOY2CODENOW
If the above information does not resolve your issue, please consider creating a new thread containing the specific details of your issue.

Doing so will allow the Mozilla volunteers to give you solutions that are more helpful to you. This may help them to solve your problem faster and more efficiently.

Please, feel free to post the link to your thread on this thread for volunteers interested in assisting you.

Thank you.

@JAVABOY2CODENOW
If the above information does not resolve your issue, please consider creating a new thread containing the specific details of your issue.
Doing so will allow the Mozilla volunteers to give you solutions that are more helpful to you. This may help them to solve your problem faster and more efficiently.
Please, feel free to post the link to your thread on this thread for volunteers interested in assisting you.
Thank you.

Why can't Mozilla add XPCOM back so Identity Safe WILL work? If not added back to Firefox base,how about an XPCOM add-on?

Why should Mozilla be limited to what it does with its' own software due to a 3rd party (who is "adding onto Firefox") who can't think of a different way to "hook" their add-on feature into Firefox? Maybe Symantec needs to start with a "clean sheet of paper" for an all new Identity Safe. That would have solved the "problem" you posted about here - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/964582 - 2 1/2 years ago.

IMO, Norton / Symantec should have come up with something other than XPCOM-"hooks" back around Firefox 5.0 (summer 2011) and saved their user the "pain" of Norton add-ons getting disabled with every 6 weeks Firefox update. Further more, Norton insisted on "beating an almost dead horse" and now that "horse is dead". And Norton (again) seemed to be ignorant of XPCOM's impending demise and "were caught with their pants down" once again, by not planning ahead and coming up with a replacement ahead of time. Now they're faced with not being able to support their users expectations regarding their Identity Safe add-on.

I wonder what many of the other "password safe" add-ons for Firefox didn't seem to have as much trouble as Norton / Symantec has had over the last couple of years? Did those other add-ons figure out how to "do it" without using XPCOM? Or were their programmers more capable of handling XPCOM and / or keeping their Firefox add-ons up-to-date with Firefox with a lot less inconvenience for their users?

IMO, based upon what I have seen here with support questions about Norton add-ons for Firefox, Norton / Symantec clearly have repeatedly failed their paying customers expectations for many years now; and in the process caused undeserved complaints about Firefox being the cause of Norton software not working. And all over silly little add-ons that Norton / Symantec made and "billed" as working with Firefox; and mostly over features that Firefox already has had for years, which Norton decided that "they could improve upon".

Is it true that Mozilla is working on eliminating all the present add-ons?

That is "your take" on what will be happening over the next year; a negative perception of Mozilla building a "New Firefox" and leaving Gecko behind.

Gecko is 20th century based code (circa 1994 by Netscape) that hit a "wall" for further improvement in recent years. Internet Explorer - Trident came about a year later, with Opera - Presto in 1999. Its contemporaries, IE and Opera, have already moved beyond their old technologies; Opera moved from Presto (2 1/2 years ago) for WebKit / Blink using code from the Chromium project. And IE (Trident) is basically "dead" with the coming of Edge in Windows 10. But IE was basically "stuck" in the last century until 2009 when IE8 was released.

Mozilla will be transitioning from Gecko to Rust/Servo in 2016 and most current add-ons will need to be rewritten a "WebExtensions" for the "New Firefox". You can view that in a negative light is you choose to, but your (and my)' opinions add up to nothing. Your choice to "piss and moan over how unfair life is" or to look into the other Mozilla Firefox - based (Gecko-based) web browsers that are out there and start using one that meets your needs better then the New Firefox will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers#Gecko-based

Personally, I have started using SeaMonkey due to recent changes in Firefox that greatly displease me, and if the "path" that Firefox is on leads to where I thing it is heading, by the end of 2016 I will become a fomer Firefox user. Meanwhile, I will be keeping track of the changes and be using more than one web browser for the first time in 13 1/2 years.

''papasquee [[#answer-826657|said]]''
<blockquote>
Why can't Mozilla add XPCOM back so Identity Safe WILL work? If not added back to Firefox base,how about an XPCOM add-on?
</blockquote>
Why should Mozilla be limited to what it does with its' own software due to a 3rd party ''(who is "adding onto Firefox")'' who can't think of a different way to "hook" their add-on feature into Firefox? Maybe Symantec needs to start with a "clean sheet of paper" for an all new Identity Safe. That would have solved the "problem" you posted about here - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/964582 - 2 1/2 years ago.
IMO, Norton / Symantec should have come up with something other than XPCOM-"hooks" back around Firefox 5.0 ''(summer 2011)'' and saved their user the "pain" of Norton add-ons getting disabled with every 6 weeks Firefox update. Further more, Norton insisted on "beating an almost dead horse" and now that "horse is dead". And Norton (again) seemed to be ignorant of XPCOM's impending demise and "were caught with their pants down" once again, by not planning ahead and coming up with a replacement ahead of time. Now they're faced with not being able to support their users expectations regarding their Identity Safe add-on.
I wonder what many of the other "password safe" add-ons for Firefox didn't seem to have as much trouble as Norton / Symantec has had over the last couple of years? Did those other add-ons figure out how to "do it" without using XPCOM? Or were their programmers more capable of handling XPCOM and / or keeping their Firefox add-ons up-to-date with Firefox with a lot less inconvenience for their users?
IMO, based upon what I have seen here with support questions about Norton add-ons for Firefox, Norton / Symantec clearly have repeatedly failed their paying customers expectations for many years now; and in the process caused undeserved complaints about Firefox being the cause of Norton software not working. And all over silly little add-ons that Norton / Symantec made and "billed" as working with Firefox; and mostly over features that Firefox already has had for years, which Norton decided that "they could improve upon".
<blockquote>
Is it true that Mozilla is working on eliminating all the present add-ons?
</blockquote>
That is "your take" on what will be happening over the next year; a negative perception of Mozilla building a "New Firefox" and leaving Gecko behind.
Gecko is 20th century based code ''(circa 1994 by Netscape)'' that hit a "wall" for further improvement in recent years. Internet Explorer - Trident came about a year later, with Opera - Presto in 1999. Its contemporaries, IE and Opera, have already moved beyond their old technologies; Opera moved from Presto ''(2 1/2 years ago)'' for WebKit / Blink using code from the Chromium project. And IE (Trident) is basically "dead" with the coming of Edge in Windows 10. ''But IE was basically "stuck" in the last century until 2009 when IE8 was released.''
Mozilla will be transitioning from Gecko to Rust/Servo in 2016 and most current add-ons will need to be rewritten a "WebExtensions" for the "New Firefox". You can view that in a negative light is you choose to, but your ''(and my)''' opinions add up to nothing. Your choice to "piss and moan over how unfair life is" or to look into the other Mozilla Firefox - based (Gecko-based) web browsers that are out there and start using one that meets your needs better then the New Firefox will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers#Gecko-based
Personally, I have started using SeaMonkey due to recent changes in Firefox that greatly displease me, and if the "path" that Firefox is on leads to where I thing it is heading, by the end of 2016 I will become a fomer Firefox user. Meanwhile, I will be keeping track of the changes and be using more than one web browser for the first time in 13 1/2 years.